The walk to Honeydukes was a short, but Cass still took the broom. It was always easier to get around with a broom, and if possible he might even take Natalie for a ride to see how good she'd got.

Landing in front of the shop he stepped inside, with a smile, looking around the familiar setting as the bell over the door went off. He waited for her to come into the room, resting his broom on the door frame as he watched the door to the back where he assumed she was.

'Hey there, pretty,' he said with a smile when she came out (much as he expected from the back). 'How have you been?' he asked softly, checking her over. 'Not ill I hope?'

"I'll be out in just a minute!" Natalie called out from the back as the wards alerted her that someone had come into the shop. She sighed in frustration as she heard footsteps moving closer, and she turned around, ready to tell whoever it was that he couldn't be back here.

When she saw Cass, though, she brightened immediately and wiped her hands clean before moving forward to give him a tight hug.

"Better now. A week ago you'd have seen quite a disgusting sight," she replied with a smile.

"Well, after I got better, I opened up shop again. Did you know that even with a disease flying rampant throughout town, people still want to come into the candy store, immune or not? One person even complained to me that the shop had been closed for a few days. She obviously must have been living under a rock. Dodgy old crone, too. Liked the color pink a little too much if you ask me."

She grinned as she finished one of the candies she was making, and she turned towards Cass, leaning up to give him a quick peck on the lips before dropping the candy into his hand.

Cass rolled his eyes. 'There will always be idiots,' he said, though he blinked slightly as she kissed him, not at all prepared (though really he should have been) and not pulling back as he supposed he should.

Then again, it was only a peck. Nothing to worry about. 'Kinks?' he asked instead, a smirk on his face. 'What will it do, make me dance naked on the table or fall in love with the colour pink? You're sure you weren't the reason why the poor old lady suddenly had to wear pink?' he teased.

Natalie swatted him on the shoulder gently and shook her head before placing her arms around his neck and standing on her tiptoes to kiss him again. "I've missed you," she whispered, moving one of her hands to the back of his neck, her fingers combing through the curls there.

Ok so this was probably a bit more than he was supposed to agree to. A lot more. Even if it was nice.

Placing his hands on her hips he pushed her away gently. 'Natalie, I...' he hesitated for a moment. 'I can't do this,' he then said. Merlin that felt odd to say. Kissing her on the forehead, he stepped back, putting some distance between them to force himself out of too familiar patterns.

'I'm sorry, I just can't do that any more. As lovely as it is, as you are.' He smiled at her, fighting the urge to step closer and wrap his arms around her, giving a thought to Percy. Yeah, it was definitely worth it.

Natalie frowned when he pushed her away from him, feeling a little hurt by the gesture. She looked into his eyes again for a moment, and then looked back down at the counter in front of her, pulling in a quick breath. More than a little hurt.

She avoided his gaze as he spoke, trying not to show how him how hurt she was, but failing abysmally. When he finished speaking, she looked up at him with watery eyes, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from spilling over.

She shouldn't care so much.

Why?," she thought to herself, biting down on her lip as she watched him. She gave him a small smile and nodded. "Fine," she whispered.

Ok, so now he felt bad. Really bad. He hadn't meant to make her cry. Biting his lip, he stepped up, wrapping his arms around her. 'I'm sorry, Natalie,' he said softly, kissing the top of her head (there was nothing wrong about that, right?).

'It's not that I don't want to,' he went on. 'I mean, I do, it's just...' Well he might as well say it. 'I'm kind of in a relationship. Well not kind of. I just am.'

She couldn't hold back her tears as he wrapped his arms around her, and she felt like the biggest girl as she cried softly against his chest, refusing to show her face to him until her moment of silliness was over.

But God did she wish she'd been special enough for a relationship with him.

She finally pulled away from and looked into his face, her jaw set as she watched him.

Why did she cry? Really he didn't want her to cry, only he didn't know how to stop it or what to do because really this was not something he was prepared for.

Whenever someone had stopped shagging him it had been easy. But then he'd always expected it to end that way. Maybe Natalie hadn't? Oh who the hell was he kidding, it was fairly obvious that she hadn't. Maybe even that she'd hoped... oh fuck.

When she pulled away, he brushed the tears from her face, trying to figure out what to say. It would be easy to lie. Yes. Nothing else to it. And yet... 'Does it matter?' he asked softly. 'I really never meant to hurt you, Natalie,' he said instead. 'I never thought this would hurt you.'

"Neither did I," she told him, moving away from him so that she could wipe her face with her hand. She definitely hadn't thought she'd be all that affected by something like this, but it was quite obvious that she had.

She sniffed, shaking her head as she regained her composure enough to really look at him.

"Sorry," she said, pulling in a breath. "I'm tired. Probably made me a little over-emotional."

He really didn't believe her, he was too much of a liar himself to believe her. Yet he didn't know how to handle this and he wasn't sure if he should push or just leave it alone.

When she directed his attention to the sweet in his hand, he looked down at it, and then popped it into his mouth.

A moment later he felt the sensation of a sweet raspberry filling flowing out over his tongue. It was almost sensual, and reminded him of the honey pops he liked. He smiled.

'I like it,' he said. 'Though perhaps a bit less sugar to make the raspberry really come into it's own.' He didn't know what else to do, or say. Honestly he really hadn't expected her to react like this. It was just sex. Well to him at least, and they were still friends. Or so he hoped.

Natalie jotted down Cass's comment on a spare bit of parchment, noting to work on that a bit more later. The sweet was very nearly done, and there were other things that needed to be worked on a bit more first.

"Good," she responded with a smile.

Cass was still giving her that wary look, though, and she knew he definitely hadn't believed her.

She half-wondered whether something like this had happened in her past at all, and perhaps that's why she was so distraught over the whole thing. But then again, how could you be so distraught over something you didn't even remember?

She realized she was staring, and she looked down at the floor awkwardly.

Natalie fought the urge to back away as Cass moved toward her. She really needed to stop being so silly. This was Cass, for fuck's sake.

At his question, she peered up at him for a moment before a smile slowly broke out on her face. She nodded and summoned her broom, glad that it was close by. Her magic may be getting better, but summoning an object as large as her broom was still difficult for her when the broom was upstairs and she was downstairs.

Natalie smiled up at him softly, shaking her head in a bit of amusement as she told him the same words that she'd been telling herself ever since he pushed her away and told her he was in a relationship.

"Don't be silly, Cass," she told him as she began walking towards the door.